White Flag of the Dead (6 page)

I turned off the news and played with Jake for a while. There wasn’t much else to do, and it allowed me to forget what was happening for a while. After the tenth game of Where’s Jakey?, I saw that it was time for his lunch bottle, so I made the meal and quietly fed Jake on the couch. He was a good boy about his bottle, not pushing at it like he had done in the past. His little brown eyes closed, and he was fully asleep when he finished. I carried him upstairs and placed him in his crib, closing the shades and door. I needed to make sure that I heard him as soon as he woke up, as I did not want his cries to attract attention.

I went downstairs and took stock of my supplies. Water was still running, so that was not a problem. When it finally turned off, I had a natural supply, but it was a long walk across open ground to fill up. Not an option if I could avoid it.

Food was in plentiful supply, I did not have too many worries there. I figured I was good for two months if I was careful, and Jakey was good for at least that long. Thank God we had stocked up before this mess came to a head.

I had plenty of ammo, and since the attack I saw outside, I was keeping my guns within easy reach. My .22 was now on the kitchen table, and my SIG never left my side. I wandered into the garage and looked for what I could use as backup weapons. I had a pickaxe, but dismissed it as too unwieldy. I had an axe and a hatchet, but figured those would have to be last-ditch weapons. I brought them near the door, since you never knew, especially now. I took down my bicycle and thought about it. I had seen the videos of the clogged roadways, and wondered if biking was a better option. We had a bike cart that Jake could be strapped into, and there would be room for other things. Food for thought. I attached the bike cart and inflated the tires of both it and the bike. Just to be ready.

I went back inside and brought my backpack out of the basement. I spent the next hour putting things in, taking things out, testing the weight, seeing what I could carry. I learned that water weighs a
lot
,
and I needed to figure out what I was going to do with Jacob if I had to ditch the car or bike.

I have to admit, at first the thought of being completely on my own was daunting, but as I began to pack and prepare and pray, I realized that I was comfortable with the tasks. It didn’t seem as strange to me as it might have seemed to others. It began to feel like this was something that I was meant to do, like I was meant to survive. I felt no panic, just a calm determination. Maybe it was because I had someone to live for, someone who needed me, but I think it may have been more than that. For a long time I had felt like something wasn’t getting done in my life, that I was supposed to be doing more. Maybe this crisis was a wake-up to see what I could do. Heck of thing, but I didn’t roll the dice, I just laid my chips on the craps table and hoped seven didn’t show up.

I went back online after I checked on Jake and went on with a purpose. I wanted to find out everything I could about the zombies. I already knew that they couldn’t feel pain, and they were driven by hunger. I knew if they bit you, they spread the virus which turned you into a zombie. What I needed to know was details. How fast were they, how were their senses affected? I remembered the one zombie acting like he was smelling me, and I wondered about their sense of smell.

After another hour of furious research and video watching, I came away with a much better picture than I had before. A decayed, rotting, smelly picture, but a picture nonetheless. I had watched several videos of people engaging zombies in combat, and the successful encounters involved people who kept on moving, who did not stand and try to take on a horde. Keep the fight to one on one, and you stood a pretty good chance. I saw one video where a person ran from zombies, only to be taken down after he ran out of breath. Lesson learned, they never tire. I read a report of a guy who said he tried to cross a street with ten zombies fifty yards away. He had stepped on gravel and they came after him. Lesson learned, their hearing seems to be heightened. Another story related how three people hid in a building, and two of them made it to the second floor and hid in a janitor’s closet. The third had hidden herself in an office. The zombies had gotten in, and zeroed right in on where she was. The only explanation was their sense of smell seemed heightened as well. I wasn’t so sure about that one yet, but it seemed possible.

I heard a little voice upstairs, and I ran to get Jake before he started to cry. He was talking to his fishbowl again, and smiled his sweet little smile when I came to get him. I felt a pang again when I thought about his mother, since he looked so much like her. But I pushed those thoughts down.
Get busy living
, I thought. I changed his diaper, and checked the supply. We were good for a while, but one of the things I overlooked was diapers for when he got bigger. I was going to have to think about what I was going to do about that.

Suddenly, it all came into focus. There was no more running to the local store because you happened to run out of something. There was no more store. You could run out to try and find something, but you stood a good chance of getting killed. There was no more manufacturing, no more deliveries, no more anything for a long time, if ever. We were lucky to have power right now, but it wasn’t going to last forever, since it was likely on autopilot. Water was eventually going to run out, and food was unavailable as grown supplies. Everything we knew or accepted as our world, was done. Would we come back from this? Not for a long time. It was going to be awhile before we would even feel safe to go outside. Who knew how long zombies lasted? Who knew how long the virus survived? I needed to think long term, not just here and now. With everything on the brink of the abyss, I had a lot of time to do just that.

I took Jakey downstairs to play for a while. The sun was still bright in the sky, and for all intentions the world looked like a pretty normal place. I didn’t bother with the news, since it was all the same. I didn’t bother with the internet, since there wasn’t much more I could learn. After a while you started to get used to the images, and that was something that truly disturbed me, given what I had seen.

I watched Jake play a bit, and decided that I wanted to bring in all the rest of the wood from the deck. I didn’t know if I was going to need the lumber, but I’d rather have it inside on the windows than on the deck when the zombies came calling. That was a big part of the change in my thinking. I assumed that the attack was coming, I just didn’t know when, and was going to do everything I could to keep me and mine safe.

I went outside and looked carefully around. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but at this point I wasn’t taking anything for granted. I took my drill with me and carefully began removing the screws that held down the boards of the deck. I had my hammer as well, as some of the boards needed persuading. I took several boards inside, making sure Jake was where he was supposed to be, and I put a video on for him. I figured we may as well use the power while it was there. He liked the music baby videos, especially the one that had water as the focus.

I went back to get more boards and heard a knocking at the gate of my fence. That was weird. No one in their right mind would be roaming around if they could help it. I went over to the gate and heard the knocking again. I decided to take a peek first, so I grabbed one of the chairs that was near the fence and put it close to the gate. Stepping on the chair, I slowly peeked over the fence.

There was a man standing there, staring at my fence, and I recognized him as George Galos, my neighbor from two doors down. He stood there and seemed to be waiting for me to open the gate. I climbed down and opened the fence.

“Hey, George. Good to see someone from the block is still safe. How are you and Marlene doing? Do you need anything?”

George didn’t say a word. He just looked at me. More to the point, he looked right through me. That was wrong. My warning bells went off and I was just about to shut the gate when he lunged for me, his mouth opening and letting loose a hideous groan. I backed up and he grabbed my shirt, trying to pull me in to bite. I pushed at him, but he had a grip on my shirt and wouldn’t let go. I got forced back, and tripped over the chair that was behind me. George landed on top of me and brought his head in to bite at my face. I barely got an arm under his head in time and his teeth clacked an inch from my nose. His breath was horrific, and I could see large amounts of drool and bile in his mouth, which was starting to run down his chin. I forced his head back to try and keep his teeth and spit from me, and managed to twist him off of me. I wrenched his hand to get it to release my shirt, and I pushed away from him and dove to the side, rolling and getting to my feet. George was slowly regaining his footing, and he looked around to find me. When he saw me his lips retracted, showing me his teeth as he began to come at me again. I drew the SIG from my holster and was about to shoot when I realized a shot would bring all of these things within earshot to my house. Not a smart way to survive by calling zombies to dinner. I holstered the weapon as George came for me. I climbed onto the skeletonized porch, hoping the lack of boards might slow him down.

George climbed the porch, and immediately fell between the boards, his body wedging in between the support beams. He thrashed and groaned, smacking his head on the boards, trying to free himself to take another shot at food that was nearby. I looked around for a weapon and spotted my hammer.

Not liking what I had to do but knowing it had to be done, I grabbed the hammer and reversed it, so the claw end was forward. I moved over to George, who was still flailing about with his free hand and kicking with his feet. I worked my way around to his head and looked into the eyes that found me and locked on. His struggles increased, and I could see he would eventually free himself if I left him alone. Not wanting to let that happen, I raised the hammer, and with a genuine “Sorry, George.” I brought the hammer down and split George’s skull. He immediately stopped moving and went limp. I pulled the hammer out of his head and noticed that the blood was mixed with some blackish material which I assumed was a serious concentration of the virus. I wiped the hammer off, and tossed it into the grass, resolving to put some flame to it to kill any remnants.

I went inside and grabbed my gloves, stopping for a minute to make sure Jakey was okay, then came back to get George. I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him out of the porch. I dragged him to the edge of the fence and tried to figure out how I was going to get him outside the fence. I could throw him over, but I didn’t want to make too much noise. I could drag him out, but I was worried about attracting more attention.

A shuffling noise turned my head and I managed to see another zombie walking through my open gate.
Dammit
! I forgot to close that thing.
Here we go again
, I thought. This one was a smaller female, probably a teenager, although her gray-blue skin and bloody clothes made it hard to tell. She stumbled towards me and was halfway across the yard when I moved.

I ran at her and ducked under her hands, scooting by her and knocking her a little off balance. I felt her hands brush my back as I bolted for the fence and secured it shut, making sure no more surprises wandered through the gate. The zombie followed me, reaching out and lurching towards me. I grabbed up the chair and using it like a big fork, rammed it into the teen’s chest. Her teeth slammed together at the impact and she flew backwards. I ran with her and when she fell, I was on top of the chair which was on top of the zombie. The legs of the chair imbedded themselves into the soft ground and when I jumped off, I realized that I had pinned the girl to the ground, and she couldn’t get up. She struggled like a turtle that had been tipped over, but she lacked the strength to pull the chair out of the ground. I’m sure I could probably have gone inside and she would still have been there in the morning. I went over to where I had thrown the hammer and picked it up off the grass. I went back to the zombie who was still struggling, and finished her off with a well-placed hammer blow to the top of her head. A twisted part of me wanted to yell “Fore!” before I swung, but I hadn’t gotten that far gone yet with my humor.

I went inside to check on Jakey and found that he had rolled under his swing while I was outside dancing with the neighbors. I washed my face, hands and arms, just in case anything had gotten on me, and then retrieved Jake from the swing. He was still happy, but needed a change, since he smelled slightly worse than the girl I had just killed. I changed his diaper and put him in his saucer, where he was able to bounce around and play with toys, while pretending he could stand up. It was one of his favorites, and I used to spend a good amount of time just watching him and marveling that I had helped bring such a joy to my world. I set my teeth and swore once again I would not allow anything to happen to him. I had nearly bought it out there, and if I hadn’t moved fast enough, I would have been infected and Jacob would not have had a chance. I realized that what had happened out there was probably how a lot of people bought it. A neighbor or relative was infected, managed to get close to the living without them thinking anything was amiss, and just like that, they were infected or eaten. Either way, they wound up dead.

I went to the counter and pulled out a large garbage bag. I pulled it over my head after I had made holes for my arms and head. I went back out and pulled the chair off the dead girl. I dragged her over to where George lay and grabbed her by the ankle and wrist. Swinging her around, I heaved her over the fence after I had gained enough momentum. I then grabbed George and did the same, although it was a lot harder, since he weighed a good one hundred-seventy. His head hit the top of the fence and he cartwheeled over, landing with a thump on the other side. I briefly wondered what it must have looked like to see two bodies suddenly sailing over a fence in the middle of the suburbs. Shaking my head at the way the world had become, I stripped off my big baggie and went back inside, retrieving my hammer from the grass again.